A thoughtful generation of organic-food devotees, antiques lovers and city slickers escaping the rat race has given the counties along the fabled river a new lease on life.

The fog was thicker than a Russian novel when I caught up with Bill Hughes, the owner of Blue Sky Balloons, which is based in Beacon, New York, about an hour's drive north of Manhattan. Balloonists like to lift off at dawn or dusk — this is when the winds are the most benign, diminishing the chances of touching down in Quebec — and I had arrived, as instructed, at 5:30 a.m.

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A trim, easygoing fellow who appears younger than his seventy years, Hughes has spent much of the past three decades observing the Hudson River Valley from a wicker basket 1,500 feet above the ground. While I stood with my fellow passengers in the sumpy field that served as our launchpad, Hughes flipped a switch on what looked like the world's biggest hair dryer. He called on us to grasp the thick handling lines as the eighty-foot-tall cobalt blue balloon came to life, rising slowly and fitfully, like an awakened elephant. We climbed aboard and within minutes were hovering above the forest surrounding the town of LaGrange, enjoying an unobstructed view of the October fog.

"Where is the autumnal splendor?" I asked our pilot.

"It'll burn off," Hughes assured me.

Thirty minutes later, the sun arrived, rested and ready for work. Indeed, the mist evaporated, and all changed from gray and opaque to clear and colorful, as if I'd had cataracts removed. From the vantage of the balloon, we could see how remarkably little the west bank of the Hudson River resembles the east. Whereas Putnam, Dutchess and Columbia Counties (running from south to north on the east side) are undulating and loamy, lush with deciduous elms and oaks and maples, the west — particularly in the vicinity of the Catskills — is rocky and jagged, slashed with deep escarpments and eerie outcrops. Granted, the Catskill range is hardly the Rockies. (Its highest summit reaches only about 4,000 feet.) But it's enough to provide a good slalom run in winter, superb trout fishing in spring and arduous hiking in summer and fall.

The balloon touched down in a pasture east of Poughkeepsie. The descent was disappointingly gentle. Given the price of the excursion, I'd been hoping for some rock and roll at the finish; then again, to long for pulse-quickening action is to miss the point of the Hudson Valley entirely.

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AMERICANA GOTHIC

Few realize that for much of its length, the Hudson isn't a river at all but rather a very efficient washing machine known as an estuary. So powerful are the currents of the Atlantic Ocean that at high tide, the river is salinized as far north as Troy, New York, about 165 miles from its mouth. The counties that surround the Hudson in southern New York State are called the Hudson River Valley, but the term is somewhat elastic; in the broadest sense, the valley begins in Manhattan and extends all the way to Saratoga Springs, 175 miles north.

I lived in the Hudson Valley, on and off, alone or in company (depending on my marital status), for eleven years, all of them in a 19th-century farmhouse with six bedrooms, an oversized kitchen and an old brick hearth that glowed practically around the clock in winter. During that time of year, my property would become the Times Square of turkeydom. So many wild turkeys dashed back and forth, arranged by height in tight parade formation, that I could have tossed a kitchen cleaver in their general direction and bagged myself a fine dinner. (Though when I actually tried that, it didn't work.) I left the valley in 2000, the victim of a grave case of Lyme disease, but I return periodically throughout the year, sometimes for work, other times for emotional resuscitation, joining the mass migration from all points south on Friday afternoon.

I find it astonishing that scenes like the turkey parade take place less than a hundred miles from the conurbations of New York City, and when I drive in the valley — east of Route 9, the major commercial corridor — I'm struck by how unspoiled the area remains. True, the tide of civilization flowing from Gotham is creeping ever northward, but thanks to government-sponsored farmland-preservation programs and nonprofit organizations, growth has been kept relatively in check. In fact, you can still see stretches of the riverbank that Henry Hudson admired as he sailed the wrong way toward China.

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My own sojourns tend to run up the east bank of the Hudson from Cold Spring, a well-kept river town in Putnam County said to have been named by George Washington. Here my favorite place is beside the water, where an old circular bandstand affords one of the great natural vistas on the East Coast. To the north, the grand waterway narrows and veers left, then abruptly changes its mind and takes a sharp right, coursing under the brooding shadow of Storm King Mountain, whose towering façade appears to have been sculpted by a blow from a giant ax. To the south, the river widens before skirting the grand promontory of West Point, the military school's chapel tower standing in silhouette against the afternoon sun. A century ago, this view of the river inspired landscape painters Frederic E. Church, Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, leaders of the Hudson River School. (A fine collection of their works is on permanent exhibition at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, at nearby Vassar College.)

From Cold Spring I usually drive north to Hyde Park, in Dutchess County, on the Taconic State Parkway, a route so resplendent, you may have to pull over to catch your breath. Opened in 1932, it's a winding two-lane affair, 105 miles long and framed by birches, oaks, maples and wildflowers that in fall let loose a fusillade of pigments. Although Hyde Park doesn't have a downtown — at least I could never find it — it's worth a stop for its antiques shops, the majority of them on Route 9. The most diverting is the Hyde Park Antiques Center, a dizzying 9,000-square-foot wonder emporium that occupies a much-expanded old stagecoach stop and contains the wares of about fifty dealers; many of them are rarely there in person, however, so you're basically on your own.

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"What are your specialties here?" I inquired of the gray-haired gentleman at the front desk on a recent visit.

He was right: I found everything from 19th-century armoires and Colonial-era bureaus to glassware, folk art and fifty-year-old copies of the Saturday Evening Post, all at reasonable prices.

If you continue north along the riverbank, you can easily appreciate why the Hudson has been likened to France's Loire. For one, both wend through diverse, and at times dramatic, topography; both are flanked by fecund agricultural regions; and both are ornamented with centuries-old houses so big, nobody lives in them anymore. The Hudson River Valley is to historic estates what Las Vegas is to tacky hotels, and the names themselves reflect the poetic landscapes they dominate: Olana, Val-Kill, Wilderstein, Cedar Grove, Locust Grove, Lindenwald, Montgomery Place.

For a taste of America's Gilded Age at its most fulsome, I head to the Vanderbilt Mansion, in Hyde Park. This fifty-four-room Beaux Arts palace, designed by McKim, Mead & White with hints of the florid Italian Renaissance style, was completed in 1898. In its heyday, it "required" a year-round staff of about thirty-five. "These people weren't exactly overworked," a guide once told me as we toured the rambling servants' quarters. "The family occupied the house for only a few weeks in summer and fall."

One of the residences I like best, Springwood, isn't a mansion at all but a rambling, architecturally confused house (a melding of Georgian Revival and Italianate). The boyhood home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was a lifelong source of spiritual sustenance for him: "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River," he wrote prior to embarking on his fourth presidential campaign, just months before the end of his life.

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Springwood is alluring not for its grandness of scale — it could pass for an outbuilding on the far grander Vanderbilt spread — but for its generosity of sentiment. Some rooms are in such an informal state, you might think Eleanor and Franklin had just motored into town for a quart of milk. And I get chills every time I walk into FDR's study, in the museum on the property, and see the famous hearth at which he delivered some of his fireside chats and the desk where he pondered those agonizing wartime decisions that changed the world.

A short distance away is the Culinary Institute of America, known here as the CIA, which occupies a capacious former Jesuit seminary on a rise above the river. Inside are five student-staffed restaurants, from formal French to a casual café, all of which are open to the public. The prices are moderate, most likely because you're in the front seat on a culinary test-drive. Foodies who eat here often sign on for the school tour, during which they can press their noses against the glass enclosing the instruction kitchens and watch future chefs earn their toques.

Rhinebeck, half an hour to the north, is likewise a popular destination for fans of eating, which is probably why I made it my home for so long. This handsomely preserved village, which over the past decade has become a hot spot for shopping and the arts in addition to dining, has a warm small-town feeling. On the south side of East Market Street, dignified two-story brick structures garnished with Italianate cornices and brackets border the commercial center, only three blocks long if you include the firehouse. The residential village is a candy store of architectural expression, from Greek Revival and Second Empire to Victorian, Colonial, neoclassical and much in between.

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As yet, Rhinebeck is uncontaminated by the likes of Starbucks and the Gap, and almost every business is locally owned. A thirty-minute stroll takes you past upscale women's-clothing stores, a bookstore, a first-rate bakery and café, an art supply center and a friendly country-apparel emporium where city folk can stock up on flannel shirts and insulated khakis that they will never wear.

The stately white-columned Beekman Arms (circa 1766), which lays claim to being the country's oldest continually operating hostelry, anchors the village. It packs the requisite charm: low-beamed ceilings, cavernous hearths, Colonial-era paintings, wide-planked floors. A pretty glassed-in dining terrace faces the goings-on in town. Every evening after work, a convivial assemblage of local businessmen gathers in the dark and woody tavern, a venue that for years has been the financial beneficiary of my frequent and enthusiastic patronage.

NEW YORK PASTORAL

If Dutchess County serves up the rural experience on an attractive pewter platter, Columbia, its less affluent neighbor to the north, delivers it from the back of a pickup truck. In the middle of the county, around Claverack and Chatham, you can drive for miles without exercising the brake pedal (unless a rogue cow stages a prison break). You'll pass newly harvested cornfields, their stiff yellow stalks looking like so many bamboo spears plunged into the earth; century-old farmsteads, occasionally one with truck tires tied to tree branches (the neighborhood amusement park); teenage girls on horseback clomping past your car with a wave; and snaking country lanes where the treetops on either side reach out and shake hands, creating a relucent tunnel of colorful backlit leaves. Being a notoriously absentminded, even dreamy, individual, I have become so enthralled with this country pastoral that, more than a few times, I have entered a sort of fugue state while driving; indeed, on two occasions I found myself over the border in Connecticut. These winding, twisting, endlessly scenic roads can do that to a man.

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But when I stay my course, it's a twenty-five-minute cruise from my old stomping ground of Rhinebeck to the county seat, Hudson (population about 7,500), an urban Lazarus if ever there was one. For nearly a century after the American Revolution, the city flourished as a whaling port, collecting valuable sperm oil for lighting. More than a hundred miles upriver, it may seem an unlikely location for a seafaring fleet, but there was good reason. After the war, Nantucket was the nation's preeminent whaling center. Many fleet owners were convinced, however, that the recently vanquished Brits would not roll over so easily and that before long they would return with a formidable and ill-tempered armada — first stop, the little American island in the North Atlantic. After scouting for safe ports in the Northeast, the whaling companies determined that the security of far-off Hudson outweighed its inconvenience. They moved operations inland. Oops. The arrival of kerosene, in the 1860s, and electric light, in the early 20th century, snuffed out Hudson's whale-oil trade, and after a brief period of growth, the city found itself in a long, slow decline.

In the late 1980s, just when it appeared that things could not get worse, simultaneous miracles occurred. Columbia County's agriculture business was given a new lease on life when old-fashioned produce markets returned to Manhattan and other farm-deprived urban areas. This, combined with a burgeoning demand for local provender on the part of city restaurants, fertilized a revival of small-scale agriculture in the region. Suddenly the hills were alive, for the first time in half a century, with all types of food enterprises, producing artisanal cheeses, goat's-milk yogurt, honey, fruits, organic vegetables, smoked shad, organic poultry, even that bane of the animal-protection lobby, foie gras.

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On the heels of the farmers came antiques dealers from New York City, who fell in love with the town's river location, its architecture, its cheap real estate, its train access and its beauty. Today, Warren Street, were it narrower, could be in Manhattan's West Village, given its wealth of upscale antiques shops, restaurants and cafés and its growing gay community. On a recent visit, I couldn't resist exploring the 20th Century Gallery, which specializes in furnishings and artwork from the Wally Cleaver era. One item caught my eye: a three-tiered birch trolley (it looked perfect for serving appetizers like pigs in a blanket and onion dip).

I presumed he was the owner, but he was just a shopper who took the opportunity to enlighten me on the life and times of the John Widdicomb furniture company, which predates the Civil War and is known today for making fine reproductions. You don't have to go to an antiques shop, though, to find period pieces (and those who worship them); simply step inside one of the preserved residences, like Olana, which looms over the river on a hillside above the town of Hudson.

A SLEEPING GIANT

How can you not be drawn to a structure called the Rip Van Winkle Bridge? From Hudson, and over the Hudson, it deposits you in Greene County, in the shadow of the Catskills, where you can make a run down Route 9W, which parallels the river and threads through towns of varying degrees of pulchritude. A further fifteen-minute drive west of the antiques village of Saugerties lands you in the heart of Woodstock.

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Nearly forty years after the epochal music festival, the name Woodstock still evokes the heady idealism and drop-out egoism of a more hopeful era. That's groovy. But to my sensibilities, the town has become a touristy and expensive, albeit cute, bazaar. I usually whip right through, heading to Route 375 South and on to Route 28 West, which snakes around the wide Ashokan Reservoir. It's a gorgeous rural drive, and at its end, I still find myself in New York State.

Occupying a 1797 stone fortress that once served as a tavern and restaurant for pilots and deckhands on the Delaware-Hudson Canal is the DePuy Canal House, in High Falls, thirty-five minutes south of Woodstock. The beamed dining rooms, their original horse- and pig-hair plaster intact, redolent of smoldering wood from an enormous fireplace, must look pretty much as they did two centuries ago. In 1964, a local resident and self-taught chef, John Novi, purchased the house for $4,500. ("I talked them down from $12,000," he once told me with pride.) Five years later he opened the Simeon Deputy Tavern, his first culinary venture, with modest aspirations — that is, until the famed New York Times restaurant critic Craig Claiborne came calling one evening with eight friends in tow. Two weeks later, the fledgling dining spot in the middle of nowhere was awarded four stars, the highest rating. More than a quarter century on, it endures as a vibrant original.

Nearby New Paltz attracts city folk not only for its food and spectacular rock climbing but also for the Mohonk Mountain House, one of the valley's great man-made wonders. It's a six-story, 265-room stack of timber and stone hanging precariously over crystalline Mohonk Lake. Surrounded by 2,200 private acres of the Appalachians' Shawangunk Mountains, Mohonk is among the last of the grand 19th-century resorts; you half expect Teddy Roosevelt to strut out of the lounge and plunge into the chilly water. That said, it has changed much since my last visit, in the mid-1980s. Back then, when my wife and I arrived, on Christmas Eve, the overheated lodge was largely inhabited by nostalgic senior citizens, some of whom had been coming since the Eisenhower administration. We smuggled a bottle of wine into the puritanical dining room to enjoy with the bland meat-and-potatoes dinner. At 8 p.m. there wasn't a whole lot to do, and we were asleep by nine.

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These days Mohonk's marvelous year-round spa draws sophisticated visitors from around the country. The spiffed-up rooms remain, quaintly, sans telephones. The menu now carries dishes like marinated mahimahi with orange-cumin salsa, and the wine list has received an award from the Wine Spectator.

I continue to explore the Hudson Valley year-round — although it doesn't get any better than in October — and like that of someone who watches Gone With the Wind again and again, my ardor is undiminished with repetition. Each viewing reveals something new.

Thomas Cole, the 19th-century landscape artist and resident of Catskill, observed that "the river scenery of the United States is a rich and boundless theme. The Hudson, for natural magnificence, is unsurpassed." It's no wonder FDR longed to return. As do I.

Native IntelligenceWhen to go

Spring dawdles on its journey north to the Hudson Valley, so the area can be cool until about mid-April. This is a fine time of year to see the historic mansions along the east bank of the river (most are open year-round), as well as visit some of the region's museums and galleries. Summer is the season for boat trips, hiking, ballooning, music festivals (for a rundown of events, go to travelhudsonvalley.org) and much more. In autumn, there is no better place for leaf gazing, while a snowbound winter in the Catskills inspires participation in all diversions vertical.

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The East SideWhere to drive

This is but one possible route: proceed west out of the village of Rhinebeck on Rhinecliff Road (it is unmarked; the road is at a right angle to Route 9 and runs past the Beekman Arms) for a little more than a mile and turn right on River Road (also known as County Road 103). Over the next six miles, River Road, bordered by craggy stone walls for considerable stretches, wends its way past farms and broad fields, grand estates and compact farmhouses. You can keep going until you reach Bard College (it's worth stopping there to see the campus's Frank Gehry-designed performing arts center), or you can turn east on Route 82, which takes you to Red Hook, Rhinebeck's less polished neighbor to the north.

Belvedere Mansion. The imposing neoclassical house, overlooking the river three miles south of Rhinebeck, has seven sizable rooms, each laden with antiques. Also on the property are four suites in what is billed as a hunting lodge, ten simple carriage-house rooms and a serene "Zen lodge" that can be reserved for groups of up to ten. Double rooms from $225, suites from $300, carriage-house rooms from $105, lodge rooms from $250. 10 Olde Rte. 9, Staatsburg; 845-889-8000; belvederemansion.com.

Van Schaack House. Built in 1785 in the Dutch village of Kinderhook, the towering mansion is a harmonious overlapping of architectural styles. Double rooms from $150. 20 Broad St., Kinderhook; 518-758-6118; vanschaackhouse.com.

Where to eat

Ca'Mea Ristorante. Expect the elements of a swanky Italian restaurant in SoHo — a long granite bar, a wood-plank floor — but not the pretension. The homemade pasta dishes, like pappardelle with wild-boar ragù, are standouts. 333 Warren St., Hudson; 518-822-0005; camearestaurant.com.

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Culinary Institute of America. Five student-staffed restaurants (the Ristorante Caterina de' Medici, American Bounty, Escoffier, St. Andrew's Café and the Apple Pie Bakery Café) turn out satisfying fare. Book far in advance, and save time for a tour of the school. 1946 Campus Dr., Hyde Park; 845-471-6608; ciachef.edu.

Stissing House. Sophisticated French-American cuisine, much of it inspired by Provence, is on the menu at this relatively new valley addition, which is housed in a 226-year-old building. Rtes. 199 and 82, Pine Plains; 518-398-8800; stissinghouse.com.

Swoon Kitchenbar. One of Hudson's more refined restaurants, this modern, congenial brasserie, which has a sleek wooden bar, makes good use of area ingredients, such as smoked trout and organic shiitake mushrooms. Plus, it has a solid wine list. 340 Warren St., Hudson; 518-822-8938; swoonkitchenbar.com.

Montgomery Place. The twenty-three-room Federal-style mansion is adorned with outstanding art, including portraits by Gilbert Stuart. River Rd., near the intersection of Rtes. 199 and 9G, Annandale-on-Hudson; 845-758-5461; hudsonvalley.org.

Staatsburgh State Historic Site (Mills Mansion). One of the majestic houses along the Hudson River, this 1896 Beaux Arts structure (fire destroyed the 1795 original) has a giant portico and tall pilasters and drips with Louis XIV furnishings. It was the model for Bellomont, the Trenors' estate, in Edith Wharton's classic novel The House of Mirth.Old Post Rd. (off Rte. 9), Staatsburg; 845-889-8851; staatsburgh.org.

From Kingston, travel south on Route 9W, past vegetable stands, vineyards and funky little towns. At West Park you can stop at Slabsides, the cabin where the naturalist John Burroughs retreated to write. Follow Route 299 west through New Paltz and Route 32 north back to Kingston.

Where to stay

Buttermilk Falls Inn & Spa. Just seventy-five miles from New York City (and ten minutes north of Newburgh), the seventy-acre inn and spa is a good place for a two-day decompression stopover. Bunk down in a comfortable two-story house or a cottage overlooking the river, or stay in one of the inn's spacious rooms, some of which have balconies and fireplaces. The new spa uses geothermal and solar technologies. Double rooms from $220, suites from $325, cottages from $550. 220 North Rd., Milton; 877-746-6772; buttermilkfallsinn.com.

Inn at Canal House. A hidden gem across the canal from the DePuy Canal House, it comprises five sunny guest rooms and suites, including those in the Locktender Cottage. Double rooms from $125, suites from $155. 1513 Main St., High Falls; 845-687-7700; depuycanalhouse.net.

Bear Café. This regional favorite, which serves pan-roasted chicken and other New American dishes, has maintained its energy for more than twenty years. 295 Tinker St., Woodstock; 845-679-5555; bearcafe.com.

Brotherhood. The gleaming visitors' center at the country's oldest winery is a popular stop on tasting tours. Also be sure to explore the museum. 100 Brotherhood Plaza Dr., Washingtonville; 845-496-3661; winery.net.

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